The Municipality of Port Hope and Municipality of Clarington have been actively involved in the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) from the beginning. In 1998 and 1999, the Municipality of Clarington, the former Town of Port Hope and former Township of Hope proposed concepts for managing low-level radioactive waste locally within each municipality’s borders.
Municipality of Port Hope town hall
Municipality of Clarington town hall
Those concepts were the basis of the 2001 Legal Agreement with the Government of Canada which founded the PHAI and the host municipalities continue to act as key participants in the Port Hope and Port Granby projects.
Consultations and communications
Consultation and communication are cornerstones of the 2001 Legal Agreements between the Government of Canada and municipalities. Municipal representatives meet regularly with PHAI staff to keep abreast of all aspects of the projects and to discuss municipal undertakings of importance to the projects.
Several times a year, the municipalities of Port Hope and Clarington, as signatories to the Legal Agreement, meet with representatives of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and the PHAI as the Agreement Monitoring Group to review project commitments made through the Legal Agreement. Additionally, each municipality receives annual federal funding to retain consultants, known as the Municipal Peer Review Team, to advise on technical aspects of the projects.
Municipal host fees
As host municipalities for the future long-term, low-level radioactive waste management facilities, each of the original signatories to the Legal Agreement received a $10 million host fee.
The 2001 Legal Agreement established that the principal would be paid by the Government of Canada to the municipalities when each of the long-term waste management facilities received a licence from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to proceed. The Town of Port Hope and Township of Hope amalgamated in 2001 to form the Municipality of Port Hope. In 2009, the Port Hope Project was licensed and $20 million was paid to the Municipality of Port Hope. The Port Granby Project received a CNSC licence in 2011 and $10 million was paid to the Municipality of Clarington.
Since 2001, prior to receiving the licences, the municipalities received the interest on their respective host fees.